“No.”
“Claire—”
“No.”
He stood again.
“He hasn’t told you anything, has he?”
I could barely hear him over the blood pounding behind my ears.
“Told me what?”
David’s face crumpled.
And in that moment, I knew.
Not the details.
Not yet.
But I knew the shape of the truth.
My husband had not been disappearing because he loved someone else.
He had been disappearing because something was taking him away from me.
Marcus was sitting beside a window when I walked into Room 714.
For the first few seconds, my mind refused to recognize him.
My husband was forty-two years old.
He ran five miles every Sunday morning.
He carried our daughter upstairs when she fell asleep on the couch even though she had gotten far too heavy for it.
He once rebuilt half our backyard deck because I mentioned, casually, that one board squeaked.
The man sitting beside the window looked twenty years older.
His hospital scrubs had been replaced with gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt.
There were purple shadows beneath his eyes.
An IV line disappeared beneath his sleeve.
And taped against his chest, just below his collarbone, was something I had seen many times in photographs.
A central venous catheter.
Marcus looked at David first.
Then at me.
The color disappeared from his face.
“Claire.”
I shut the door.
David stayed outside.
For several seconds neither of us spoke.
I finally lifted the lunch bag.
“I brought you apple pie.”
Marcus’s mouth opened.
No sound came out.
“I thought you were working.”
He looked down.
“I was going to tell you.”
I laughed.
It was an ugly sound.
“You were going to tell me.”
“Tonight.”
“You missed Lily’s birthday three weeks ago.”
“I know.”
“You said you were operating.”
“I know.”
“You missed Thanksgiving.”
“I know.”
“Our anniversary.”
His eyes closed.
“I know.”
I walked toward him.
“What is that?”
I pointed at the catheter.
He didn’t answer.
“What is it, Marcus?”
His voice was almost inaudible.
“Acute myeloid leukemia.”
The room seemed to tilt.
I caught the back of a chair.
“No.”
“I was diagnosed ten months ago.”
I stared at him.
Ten months.
The same month I had found him crying on the edge of our bed.
The same night he had pulled his hand away when I reached for him.
Ten months.
“You’ve known for almost a year?”
“Yes.”
“And you didn’t tell me?”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I thought I could treat it and be done before you ever had to know.”
I actually stepped backward.
“You thought you could have cancer privately?”
“Claire—”
“Did you think I wouldn’t notice if you died?”
His expression broke.
“Don’t say that.”
